Latest AMD GPU drivers for XP Pro 32-bit: support for R9-290?

These drivers are 12.13 and were released on 1/14/2014. The only warning about
the drivers is:

"Does not support the AMD Radeon R9 290X"

Does that mean these drivers don't support the R9-290? Because
I thought the R9-290x and R9-290 were basically the same thing.

As to why I still use XP Pro 32-bit it's for older games (mostly EAX capable)
that I still play.

Have you tried to just install it, I've checked the release notes but couldn't find anything that it says it doesn't support that card

I do not know for sure... but would think it would NOT work as you also suspect because the cards are from the same family.

It will not hurt to try though (and would have taken less time to write the post and wait a day for an answer, LOL!)!!

According to your sig you have a 6950 flashed to a 6970 so the 12.13 drivers not supporting the R9 290X in Windows XP is a mute point (for you, anyhow).

I should've explained the only reason I wondered is that I was considering a R9-290 instead of a GTX-780. Shrug.
If AMD had any drivers for XP-Pro I would've already bought an R9-290.

Both Nvidia and AMD won't release new improved drivers simply because WinXP won't be supported anymore in couple of days. There are already issues with some drivers and multi-card configs are not working.
There can be still single drivers just to keep support for some longer but anything for Win7/8 will be faster and will support more features.
I really see no point to stay on WinXP unless you want it for benching.
Intel already dropped support for WinXP in new driver series.

I'd rather be gaming on Linux than any flavor of MS OS.

For older games, EAX works a lot better on XP Pro than it does on
7 -- even with alchemy. EAX positional sound is the best I've heard.
This is the only reason I keep XP Pro installed.